APC 10 Highlights - Enchanting Permaculture

Costumed for a fresh green APC 10.

Its like a dream that so soon after returning to Japan, I flew off again for a week in Cairns. My mission was to hang out with the hero's of Permaculture at APC 10, sharing Cecilia-flavoured PermaCulture with my friends and colleagues.

In true Edge Garden fashion I will just list my personal micro-highlights, the things that occoured at the edges, while the great speakers did their thing. 'How' this APC turned out is the truest indication of 'What' was said anyway. Get the little things right, and the big things take care of themselves.


Highlight #1
Interpretive Bushdancing at the Closing party.

Bush dancing usually makes me run fast in the opposite direction - I've no talent for submitting to micro-management. But Interpretative Permaculture bush dancing will make you laugh so hard that is hurts. Thank-you Sam from Pitchfork designs, Central Victoria
And thank-you Costa for being our adorable MC - you cultivated one great show, and made us all stars.

Gorgeous guy from Costa's Gardening Odyssey

Highlight #2
Compost Showers
The best things in life are free - you just have to work out how to make them turn up on your doorstep.
When I had my Permaculture share house, I did so much unneeded plotting for the fantasy outdoor shower, when all I had to do was link it to my compost heap. How obvious, how elegant, how cool. I will definitly do this, maybe Here in Japan.

Tip: The hottest showers are while the hottest speakers have everyone else captive in the hall. Just Google them later or get the APC 10 DVD.

Hoses coil around inside the heap,
absorbing the heat of decomposing compost

Highlight 3
Daryl Hanna the movie star

Daryl Hanna, a Freshly-hatched Permaculture Designer

She gave a fun, lively keynote speech full of affection for the broken-down, wonky parts of ourselves and our world.

I'm so looking forward to seeing what this practical, love-fueled lady does with her freshly-earned Permaculture Design Certificate, back at the ranch and beyond.


Highlight #4
Giving my "Inner Permaculture' presentation - three whole times.

It took me a decade to make, it looks great, and I inspire myself every time I give it.
Thank-you for the lovely feedback, its what really keeps me going xx



Highlight #5
Going on Bruce Zell's tour
It was booked out, but a gorgeous guy gave up his seat, and I got to meet the creators of 4 home-made tropical paradise gardens, and eat like I was in heaven.

Botanical Ark is a private botanical garden, and one families attempt to save the rainforests, which might one day save us. They won back yard of the year award, without even knowing what it was, as they have no television.

September is off-season for diversty of harvest, explains Alan

Susan Carle greeting us elegantly, as is her way,
with a native fruit smoothie.

Goldfish Surveillance team from
Bruce Zell's Contraption-rich Back garden

Highlight #5
Escaping from Bruce Zell's tour (there are two sides to everything)

Feeling fresh after a stolen swim.

There was one visit that just didn't suit me. If I had Gumboots for the mud, a parasol for the tropical sun, and a tropical fruit farm in need of inspiration, I might have stayed.
Complaining was off the menu - Permies don't complain, they Design, forage, and solve.

I ended up swishing around alone in a mossy-banked stream, marveling that heavenly spots are often one minute away, waiting to be had. I got back to the bus in good time and good spirits.

Highlight #6
Robyn Clayfield's Haystack leaping
Robyn showed us photos of last year's students jumping from the hay bale, as they publicly committed to jumping into things they didn't yet know how to do - starting gardens, creating festivals, Permaculture adventures galore.
She then hauled us out into the garden, defying time restraints, to commit to doing great things. There could not have been a better use of 20 minutes out of these 4 days. My jump was to find a publisher for a mainstream book on my Permaculture.
How on earth will I do this?

You can DIY - find a high place, a big aspiration, and put it out to the universe. Tell me too, maybe we can do something together.

Highlight #7
Nametag discovery
-
It was a nametag-free event.
I didn't like this, but the side effect was valuable discovery: When introducing yourself to strangers, the Last thing you say is your name.
People don't know until After you have finished your spiel if they need to ( or want to) remember who you are. To withold your name till the end builds suspense, (try it) and its a thoughtful way to keep their minds free for things and people the really need to know.
As with 'Plant a tree where it will grow', only tell people things they need to know, when they need to know it.
Yet another trick to keep the world Clutter-free.



Highlight #8
David Holmgren's Whole-life Permaculture

Gems of his Skyped-in presentation include:

"Create no waste, including human energy, right down to how small you need to chop vegetables. Don't waste sound energy - think before you speak".

and on the Second ethic:

"Care for the Earth contains a bit too much hubris, if you are thinking of the whole planet. But if you just consider the earth under your feet, the soil, (your contribution will be valuable)." (My Paraphrase)

He acknowledged the work Beautiful diaries of Michele Margolis do in delivering attractive PC to the mainstream - I always thought so.
The best bit was the fond pat on his wife Su's hand when she strolled in to say goodnight.

Highlight # 9
Geoff Lawton, ceaselessly frontier-crossing

This weekend he turned up with two presents for the permaculture world:

The Appetizer: A freshly-made skillfully-animated video on the miraculous world soils - how weeds bless damaged soil with their healing functions was the highlight for me.

The Main course: A preview of a Facebook-like Database to showcase what Permies all over the world are doing.
This is BIG.
We can no longer get away with just holding Good and Correct Opinions.
We will now have to practice what we preach, and we will have all these colleagues and resources at our fingertips to connect with and make our ideas real.
Geoff, you are such a John Wayne.



Highlight #10
Volunteers create Miracles - and we are all volunteers
The Organizers of APC 10 are a tiny little outback group, less than two years old, called Permaculture Cairns. They could not possibly have the resources to round up 350 of Australia's Movers and Shakers, and made us happy for 4 whole days.
Yet that is what they did.

I may never know how the miracle got pulled off. Of course there are the months of hard, capable work from Anne and Gorgie, but what fueled that? Choosing the enchanted Steiner school setting might have done it, sweetening each moment.


There was something strangely amazing about the volunteers:
They fixed our problems.
Every time.
They stayed positive and in action, and I think it caught on, so that a critical mass of the attendees decided 'this is My APC', because wherever I went with a problem or a whinge, there was someone who swiftly, creatively conquered it.

Ceci Whine -"I want more audience"
Vollie Fix - "No worries, here's an extra room, here are texta's and paper for a sign - do it again"

C W - "I'll die if I don't get hot tea"
V F - "No worries, here's the equipment"

C W - "Someone else will die if I can't find a non-snoring camp spot"
V F - "No worries, lets pick up your tent and take it for a walk."

Cartoon by April Sampson Kelly, who is actually my friend.

Lending, mending, fetching and improvising. Harry and Robina and Glen and Annie and Sarah-Jane and April and The Techies and .....it was kind of endless.

Volunteers Bruce Zell and Sarah Jane

I'm sure that APC Presenters said in words what Permaculture is and can be, about creating 'ecologies' of useful connections, creating value from whats lying around, staying positive, productive and in action.
APC 10 as an 'organism' said it wordlessly, through our attitutude and actions. We are our own proof that Permaculture makes life great.

The next APC 11 in New Zealand, 2012. We could find out who is organizing it, find out what they cannot do that we can, and make it brilliant.

Ferocious Permaculture

For the official highlights and illustrious guests please go to the APC 10 Website
More photos and stories on Cecilia's Facebook.

Ro Morrow inspires me.

Rent-a-chicken dream comes to an end

My dream of once again being a chicken mistress got indulged when Heather Elliott's chickens came to visit a few weeks ago.
So for my big birthday, I treated myself to an entire month of Book-A-Chook bantams. Here are the three ladies that came to stay:

Marie Antoinette snuggles Madam Bovary

Little Grizelda, boss of the pecking order, challenges me to shoot

Dignified. Marie, you are one splendid chicken.

This flotilla of polite, softly-clucking bantams filled their days drifting back and forth across the lawn, or pretending to be jungle-chickens, weaving through the unending undergrowth of our huge shared back garden. I never saw their feet amongst all the feathers, which added to their opulent, bustled 19th century air.

The cats were hypnotized by them, unable to resist stalking, but too scared to actually pounce. I loved their small-brained ways, how enthusiastic they got when finding a potentially delicious morsel, how indignant they got when things weren't going their way. Just like us.

I will never know if they enjoyed or just endured the daily pats and cuddles. Their feathers smelt warm and wonderful. They didn't scratch up the garden, crow at dawn, or do anything ungainly.

But all their virtues were not enough.
The month was drawing to an end. I consulted the three (lovely) families with whom the chickens, and myself, share the huge back garden, proposing I keep them. That they let them stay one month was already rather wonderful, as I the approach I took was the John Macaulay (little brother) method: "Do not ask permission, merely ask forgiveness."

On the final night, one family said "Yes".
The next Family Said "Yes".
The third family didn't say "Yes".

So my chickens have just gone on to some other lucky garden. I'm back to blackbirds and possums, and a yellowed patch where a lovely rent-a-roost stood for the month.
I am utterly ...crestfallen.

persimmon balcony garden breakfasts

Ingrediants: organic oatmeal, crystal salt, pure cream, one syrupy persimmon. That's all.

Though its the crunchy, sweet persimmons I love best, last week's hoshigaki and this morning's oatmeal have changed my mind about planting an the astringent one - its utterly wonderful, and I will order one tomorrow.


When left long enough to be syrupy and sweet, the astringency disappears, and if you are lucky, so does the stringiness.

Department store persimmons - 10 of these, or buy a nice big tree.

Now I'm remembering, my first ever edible 'balcony' garden was a sweet persimmon tree. It came to the sunny second-floor north-facing window of the old wooden apartment I shared with Shu Inagaki, my first few years in Japan. We would eat together on the tatami, at the window, and I would just reach out to pluck my wonderful desert after each meal, eating without even peeling.
As the years go by, more and more objects and events become enchanted with echos of good times. So don't worry about getting old, just make sure you find many things to savor along the way. Life's pleasures intensify with each year's overlays of memories, a consoling thought.

Permablitz: creating edible paradise on urban concrete, party-style

The old garden gate

The Permablitz network
When you join the other 800 or so people in the Melbourne Permablitz network, you get to be a kid again. Someone puts their hand up for a garden makeover, some new designers spend a few weeks working it all out, then a mob of us descend on someones garden, leaving it transformed. In this case, concrete courtyard of an inner-city rental.

Cecilia can't resist arranging everyone's colorful lunchtime contributions.
Behind, the after-lunch bath is being drawn. Loam, not foam

Here two of the three Designers hold a conference: Mara, flexing her new PDC (Permaculture Design Certificate) , and Tania, a Permie and graphic designer who discovered she lived next door to Michael's garden.

Here's you host, Michael B Green
Michael B Green is the host of This Mid-may Carlton blitz. To prepare for the day, Michael wacked together these raised bed frames, made from salvaged floorboards from the other neighbour's house, and a close relation to the table we are eating off, also Michael's work. Michael writes for The Age, on themes such as resourceful reclaming, caring for things, and caring for people, and practices what he prints. (see michael's articles here)

Tania the designer/neighbour contemplates the communal lunch (playing teasets)

Making work a party
One dish for humans, the other for the garden. I had to leave early, so can't say how the Gnocci tasted, or how the permablitz turned out. I'll go visit and take some 'after' photos. Around lunchtime. Maybe I'll get lucky.

Totally shady balcony garden? Create an edible fairy haunt with mushrooms

'There is ALWAYS a solution' is a way of thinking that will make your life colorful and different to everyone else's.

Cecilia's Urban Melbourne mushrooms, May 2009

I'm learning I can have easy answers + blame and excuses ("He rejected me", "its too much bother", "the pests got it"), or I can have Amazingness (What was missing? How can I make it worth it? How can I make troubles go elsewhere?)

Something I'm longing to see is somebody making fairyland on a shady balcony, flying over excuses in a single bound. More likely 2 or 3 or more bounds, but its just not impossible, I know.

These days I'm amazing myself with home-grown mushrooms. They are heavy, pink, and unimaginably sweet and delicious. Nobody tells you this. And its so much fun to watch them pop up. Mushrooms are edible pets.

Cecilia's wooden Tokyo mushrooms,
purchased, not grown.

I'm imagining an edible shade balcony forested with rough-barked tree stumps, nicely 'bottomed' (carved) to give a comfortable seat, and a stack of thin cushions nearby. Probably burgandy spotted in cream, for the toadstool effect. They might form a ring around a central wooden 'table' for reading the paper, or studying spells. You could have a fountain and pond setup that catches rainwater, and murmers prettily, neutralizing urban noises, taking you away. A frog refuge? No cats on balconies. Or you might go out there each morning, with fresh water to rinse your alfala sprouts, pouring the nutrient-rich old water on your mushroom patch, and doing a harvest for your lunchtime sandwich. Sprouts grow in the shade, no problems, no pests, nothing to excuses to excuse, Except for "I didn't make a daily rinse routine".

Instructions on Growing your own
1. Buy a mushroom growing kit

2. Take off the lid, spread the extra mulch over the whitish fungi roots.

3. Dampen with water

4. Put somewhere darkish

5. Keep damp, wait a week or two start eating.




Keep your mushrooms company with forest-floor plants that have evolved to get by with very little light. The dapples are just a strategy to save on chlorophyll, but have the added bonus of seeming to 'generate' sunbeams and brightness.

Be the first in the world to create a 'no problem' shade garden, and amaze and inspire us all. Just remember to send me the photo, and make my day.

Day WWOOFing - work experiance on a Melbourne balcony garden

A lovey Rose Came over on Thursday to help tend and beautify my garden.

Rose plays violin.This led me to expect excellence, sensitivity to beauty,
and attention to detail.Yes, that's what I got.

It was so enjoyable and helpful for me, and a chance to learn lots for her, so I've now planned 'Day-WWOOFing' days, once a week, for people who want to come and have Permaculture fun with me. New gardeners can learn from my gardening mistakes, rather than their own.

Here is what Rose did.

She tended the balcony garden. She chased away spiders, examined the plants for health. The Roses, Loganberries and Peach had some fungal troubles, so we mixed up a batch of Eco-Rose and Eco-oil, and gave them a squirt. If you don't know what to do when things look crook(we don't), if you don't anticipate, have a remedy at hand, you will use magical thinking. 'It will get better" you will say. But it won't.
Grown from seed, a Silvery and frilly-leaved broccoli, center, Sept 2008.

We talked about how I usually have pairs of plants, one in the big back garden, and one on the balcony so I can compare their progress. For example, in the limited balocny sunlight, the broccoli only produced a 1cm edible flower, yet I would plant it again, for its silvery-frilled beauty.

She Revitalized a shabby wheelbarrow garden with left over paint from my Front door
And like all good compositions, the day included lots of rests.
("Cecilia!", she is saying. "I'm working hard down here")

We tried to make cupcakes:

Tricked you. That's the compost Heap.

She turned the compost, with the idea of getting the 'made' compost to make another wheelbarrow garden for sowing rocket, my number-one favorite urban edible.
We discovered the heap was rather barren - someone had filled it with exhausted potting mix, a filler which just doesn't contribute to the fermenting process. Now we know, just put the old potting mix in the garden..
She removed the sunburnt Ferns from my back courtyard, ready to replace with something more useful on the next Day-WWOOFing day, Monday March 16 2009 (coming?)

Lucky for me, Rose was still here for a dinner in the huge, shared back garden - Soba salad with wasabi dressing AND Yuzu dressing (I'm indecisive).

Thank-you for coming, you were a blessing!